For Love Of The Sun [6/8]
Title: For Love Of The Sun [Part 6 of 8]
Rating: PG 13 (brief suggestive content and voilence)
Pairings: Ryden, Ryan/Keltie (yes, I started this fic back when Ryan was still with Keltie. God help me.)
Summary: (AU, Chaptered, 3rd person POV) Brendon was an angel. Exiled from the heavens, his wings were cut from his back and he fell to Earth, losing all his memories in the process. On his casual way home from work one day, Ryan Ross finds him on the street, homeless and helpless. Immediately enchanted by the boy, Ryan brings Brendon home with him and promises to take care of him. But Ryan gets much more than he bargained for. Danger and mystery lurk around every corner as Brendon struggles to unravel his memories and Ryan tries to protect him from a group of dangerous people who take a sudden interest in the strange boy. And as time and tribulation bring them closer together, Ryan finds everything he knows - including himself - changing.
Word count for this chapter: 3,335
Late in the day after the night Ryan spent with Brendon, Ryan was sitting in his office, his chin propped up in his hands and a dreamy, blank expression on his face. The image of Brendon’s face was dancing in front of his eyes, his bright, beaming smile that’s always so full of life, his dark chocolate eyes, and the way those eyes always twinkle……
It wasn’t until when Ryan looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that he’d been daydreaming for a good half hour that he gave his head a hard shake, trying to rid himself of the image of Brendon’s face in his head that just wouldn’t go away.
“What the fuck?” he asked himself when he took in the fact that that he had actually been day dreaming about Brendon. Not Keltie, Brendon. Ryan sighed as he turned back to his computer, set on getting some work done instead of wasting his time day dreaming about Brendon. His cell phone rang from his pocket and he fished it out. The screen flashed Keltie’s cell phone number.
“Hello?”
“Ryan, Ryan oh my God…” Keltie’s voice was full of panic.
“Keltie? Keltie, what’s wrong?!” he asked, worried by the frantic edge to her voice.
“I…I-uh-you have t-to come pick me up! I’m downtown…..in-in front of the grocery store…”
“What? What are you doing there? Why don’t you have the car?”
“I…I ran, before even thinking about the car….I just ran.” Ryan was silent for a second. He didn’t understand, but he knew something had happened.
“Keltie….calm down and tell me what happened. Where’s Brendon? Is he alright?”
“Don’t ask me about Brendon! I don’t fucking know!”
“You’re really worrying me here. What happened? Tell me…” Ryan knew full-well that Keltie wasn’t Brendon’s biggest fan, but she’d never had an outburst like that before. He could hear Keltie breathing deeply, catching her breath and calming herself down.
“That’s it, honey. Calm down and tell me what happened.” After a few seconds, she finally started speaking.
Her voice was shaky, she sounded both frightened and angry, “I-I was in our bedroom, getting ready to leave for work, when someone knocked - no, pounded on the front door. They kicked the door down, it was the scariest sound I’ve ever heard. There were……a bunch of voices and footsteps downstairs. They all sounded like strong, giant men. When I snuck into the hallway to look downstairs, I-I thought I saw one of them, but they were moving around too much for me to get a good look at them. They were going through the house, first the living room and then moved to the kitchen. They were looking for something…..and I think they kept saying Brendon’s name, I don’t know, I didn’t really hear….” She trailed off, her voice fading. Ryan didn’t say anything, afraid that if he interrupted her, she might become upset again and stop telling him what had happened. “I….I was so scared, so horribly, horribly scared…when they all went into the kitchen, I-I ran for the front door that they had kicked down. Luckily, they didn’t see me. I was so panicked, that I just ran and ran and ran without looking back….and now I’m here, downtown..” her voice trailed off again, and Ryan knew she was done. But it took him a few seconds to take it all in, he couldn’t believe that she had…..
“What about Brendon?!! You just left him?” his voice was incredulous, “If those men were saying his name, then they were after him!”
Keltie’s voice suddenly came in a scream through the phone, “Why do you fucking care about him so much?! Who cares about some worthless homeless kid? You should be glad that I - me, your girlfriend! - is safe and sound, not worrying about him!”
“Yeah, I am really glad that you’re safe. But you shouldn’t have just left Brendon like that.”
“Damn you, Ryan Ross!” she screeched, “You have to fucking choose! If you care about that brat so much, then you don’t have time for a girlfriend! I’m sick of having to see that street-trash Brendon hanging on you all the time. Choose, Ryan! Choose between me and that worthless kid! Now, if you’re done, come over and pick me up.”
Ryan was silent. The line was completely devoid of sound as Ryan chewed on his bottom lip. “Ryan, come on, I need you to come pick me up.” Seconds ticked by, still, Ryan said nothing.
Finally, he whispered, “No.”
“What? I didn’t hear you.” Ryan took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“No. I said no. I’m not coming, Keltie, sorry.”
Silence. Then, “What?!”
Ryan took a deep breath. He knew that she was probably just acting like this now because of the trauma she’d gone through, but he had also known that it was only a matter of time before they reached a confrontation like this, and he couldn’t escape it anymore.
“I’m not coming. If you’re going to make me choose, then…..I’m sorry.” He was already pulling on his coat and leaving his office.
“W-..what?” Keltie’s voice sounded utterly bewildered, “You can’t be serious!”
“I am,” Ryan had managed to make his voice perfectly steady, “I’m sorry.” He hung up, turned the phone off, and dropped it in his pocket.
“Brendon? Brendon!” Ryan had practically had to crawl through what was left of the front doorway after he had run home. The floor all around where the front door used to be was covered with the splintered remains of the door. “Brendon!!” Terrified by the lack of a response, Ryan rushed up the stairs and into Brendon’s room. He swallowed hard, forcing back tears of desperation. The room was, for lack of a better word, completely trashed. The windows were shattered, the bed a splintered heap on the floor, and the walls marred with deep gashes.
“Brendon!” Now he was desperately screaming the boy’s name, and continued to do so as he searched the house frantically. He found all the rest of the rooms untouched, except for the living room, where the door had been kicked down. That soon changed though, as Ryan tore through the entire house, desperately searching for Brendon. He left a trail of a mess as he threw things everywhere in his search. He’d gone through every inch of the house, but still he refused to accept that Brendon was gone. He wouldn’t,…couldn’t.
He finally went back to Brendon’s bedroom, and just stood in the middle of the ruined room, silent and practically in a state of shock. And that, that was when he heard it. Soft, tiny…sniffling. Ryan turned, it was coming from the closet. Ryan had gone through the closet already, but he walked over and slid the closet door open again. The sniffling sound was coming from a large box in the corner of the closet. He opened the box again, even though he already knew what was in it: Clothes and then a blanket on the bottom. He pulled the clothes out, and as he did so, the sniffling grew louder. He reached the blanket at the bottom of the box again. This time, he gripped the fabric and pulled it out of the box.
And there was Brendon. Curled up and sniffling, his tear-streaked face was turned upwards, wide, frightened eyes accessing Ryan. Ryan’s heart melted at the sight of the boy.
“Brendon! Oh, Brendon, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Ryan’s heart clenched as Brendon just sniffled again. Ryan didn’t know, he didn’t know what had happened to Brendon, if the men that had broken in had done anything to hurt him. “Bren…..did they hurt you?” his tone was soft and gentle, he was so worried. Brendon didn’t move, still didn’t speak. Ryan frowned, ten times more worried now than he had been before. “What did those bad people do to you?” he asked softly and reached a hand into the box to lightly touch Brendon’s soft cheek. Ryan smiled a bit as he watched Brendon slowly turn his head into Ryan’s touch. He tilted his head up a tiny bit more, the light returning to his eyes.
“……Ryan?” he whimpered in a small voice. Ryan smiled and nodded.
“C’mon, let’s get you out of there.” Ryan reached down into the box, and Brendon extended his arms slightly towards Ryan. Ryan helped lift Brendon out from the box as the boy maneuvered himself out. As each of Brendon’s limbs emerged, they wrapped themselves around Ryan, and soon Ryan was kneeling on the floor outside the closet, cradling Brendon in his lap as Brendon clung to him.
“It’s alright, everything’s okay now,” Ryan said softly in a soothing voice and stroked Brendon’s dark hair. Brendon’s eyes were shut and his face pressed into Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan held the boy in his arms silently. If anything, Ryan thought this was far worse than any of the times Brendon had been scared by his nightmares, because of the boy’s silence and stillness right now.
After several minutes had passed, Ryan finally spoke to Brendon softly. “Bren? Do you want to tell me what happened?” At first, Brendon just clutched more tightly to Ryan, and said nothing. But after a few seconds, he spoke up.
“Y-yeah…” he gulped, not moving his head from Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan rubbed his back, and kept holding him. Brendon sniffed before he started talking. “The-…the big men, they came in here. They were looking for me, a-and they grabbed me right away. They were real scary-looking. Th-they were all muscular and wearing these weird helmets….and had wings.” Ryan froze.
“Wait, wait, wait….wings?” Brendon nodded solemnly and Ryan couldn’t find it in himself to question him.
“Y-yeah.” Ryan nodded.
“Keep telling me about the bad men.” Brendon lowered his eyes and swallowed.
“That’s all. They just…said some mean stuff to me, and hit me around a little.” Ryan’s fists clenched. “But….they all left all of a sudden, I don’t know why. One of them hit me….and then they all left.”
It was then that Ryan noticed a bruise on the side of Brendon’s chin. Rage boiled up in him. Brendon, however, hid his face against Ryan’s shoulder again as the scene with the bad, scary men played over in his mind no matter how much he wanted to forget….
Brendon sat bolt upright in his bed at the crashing sound of the front door of the house being pounded down. He tugged the blankets tight around his shoulders, frightened. He strained his ears, trying to hear what was going on downstairs. The minutes scraped on, and all he could hear was the sound of heavy feet moving around, and things being shifted, moved, and broken. Brendon thought suddenly, alarmed, of Keltie. If she was downstairs…..
Brendon slid out of bed and his cocoon of blankets and moved as silently as possible towards the door of his room. But before he could reach it, the door was thrown open, the hinges bending and flying off. Brendon’s eyes widened in fear and he stumbled backwards. Three large men pushed their way into the room, leering at Brendon, who was so tiny compared to them. The three of them were wearing the same clothes. They looked official, like their clothes were a uniform. They had the same kind of black pants Brendon had been wearing when Ryan had first found him. But instead of solid shirts, there were straps that looped over their shoulders and a few times around their muscular, bare chests. They were huge, tall and imposing, and Brendon was terrified. The giant wings sprouting from their backs did nothing to ease Brendon’s fear. The wings were, from top to bottom, as tall as the men themselves. They made the men look twice as large and frightening.
“Well well, look what we have here,” one of them said with an amused chuckle in his deep voice. Brendon’s wide eyes turned to the one that had spoken, but there were helmets covering all three of their faces, and all Brendon could see were piercing dark eyes, and a mouth stretched into a gloating smirk showing white teeth.
“He looks like a little mouse caught in a trap,” another one of them commented. The first one nodded in agreement and added, “How pathetic.” He stepped towards Brendon. Brendon gasped and moved to crawl away, but the man’s hand shot out and caught Brendon’s arm, holding him firmly in place. “So you’re staying with the human brat, huh? Ryan? He took you in?” Brendon just stared at him, his hazel eyes wide and terrified. “Answer me!” the man shouted, and gave Brendon a rough shake.
“Y-yes,” Brendon whimpered, his eyes dampening with tears.
“Let me see your back,” the man ordered all of a sudden, before turning Brendon around and hiking the boy’s shirt up over his back. He peered closely at the two long, ragged scars on Brendon’s back, appraising them. He made a ‘mhm’ sound before letting go of Brendon. Brendon immediately spun back around to face him, and tugged his shirt back down as he scurried backwards on the floor, pressing himself back against the side of the bed.
“You really don’t have any idea why you’re here, do you?” The second man asked, stepping towards Brendon. Brendon didn’t know what he meant, so he stayed silent. “He really has lost all his memories,” the same one said, looking down at his comrade who had grabbed Brendon a minute ago, and was still kneeling on the floor in front of the boy.
“It seems so,” the man kneeling on the floor agreed. But then his face turned into a grimace and he spat out, “And it makes me sick, seeing one of our own huddled here as some human’s pathetic little pet.”
Quick as lightning, he rose to his feet and fisted a hand roughly in the front of Brendon’s shirt. He lifted the small boy clean off the ground. Brendon let out a fearful noise, and squeezed his eyes shut. He fell limp in the man’s hold instead of making any attempt to fight back. “Why do you think that human took you in? Do you actually think he cares about you?” the man hissed, glaring at Brendon through the slit in his helmet.
Brendon opened his eyes at those words, and while they still glistened with tears, he looked at the man apprehensively and questioningly, instead of fearfully.
“You’re the most miserable thing I’ve ever seen! Of course Ryan would take pity on you, any human would. Pity is the only thing that made him take you in. You were lying out on the street like a heap of trash, and he knew someone would come and finish you if he didn’t help you. He couldn’t have that weighing on his conscience, now could he?”
Brendon’s face was slowly crumpling with each of the man’s painful words. “You thought he cared about you?! You actually took the liberty of letting yourself think he might love you? What a joke! He doesn’t love you. You’re just a little rat from the gutter that he saved from drowning so it wouldn’t clog the drain.”
With that, the man sent Brendon skidding to the floor with a punch to the lower left side of his face, hitting his jaw straight-on. Brendon laid in a motionless heap on the floor. His teary eyes finally spilled over, tears running down his face in streams. They weren’t from the hit to his face though, they were from what the man had said. That was ten times more painful, and it cut right through to his heart.
The third man, who had been silent up until now, finally spoke, “We’re not supposed to hurt him unless we have back-up.” The one who’d hit Brendon just scoffed. “Look at him. He’d never fight back.” He turned his back on Brendon and started striding towards the door. “Let’s go. We’ve seen what we need to.”
The second one followed him out immediately. The third, who hadn’t spoken until a moment ago, looked over at Brendon on the ground for a moment, regarding him sympathetically before leaving as well. Brendon didn’t move for a while. When he did, it was to dive into the box in the closet. He curled up under the blanket in the bottom of the box, and didn’t move until Ryan came home.
Ryan held Brendon for a long time. The boy was silent, no retelling anything more than what he had said earlier. He didn’t want to discuss the details aloud. Ryan wasn’t sure how much time had passed, just that they’d been sitting in the middle of the room together for a while now. Brendon was slowly calming down. He relaxed little by little as Ryan kept his arms curled around him and stroked his fingers through his hair. Brendon finally pulled back from Ryan a little, still shaking the slightest bit as he looked up into Ryan’s face.
“Ryan? I have to ask you something….” Brendon had to know. He had to know if what that awful man had told him was true. Did Ryan care about him? Was he only taking care of Brendon out of pity? Even if it hurt, Brendon had to know whether or not that was true. Brendon’s voice was tiny, and fearful all the way through as he said softly, “Do you….do you love me?”
Ryan’s eyes widened at the question. It came out of nowhere, that had been the last thing Ryan would have ever expected Brendon to ask him. ….What could he say to that? Ryan didn’t move for a second, didn’t speak. Brendon was looking up at him with these wide, hopeful eyes. It seemed like the boy was silently begging Ryan, in his own way, not to give him the answer that would break him.
But really, what could Ryan do? It had only been a matter of hours since he had cut Keltie out of his life. He knew there was indeed something strange that he felt for Brendon, but he wasn’t even sure yet whether or not it had been the right thing to do in abandoning Keltie. How could he possibly tell Brendon he loved him? No, Ryan was nowhere near prepared to face the idea.
“Brendon…I don’t..” But Ryan couldn’t tell Brendon what he ‘didn’t’, for at that moment, the roof caved in with a thunderous crash. Ryan choked on a gasp and instantly pulled Brendon closer and curled his own body down to lean over Brendon, shielding him.
Debris from the roof rained down on them and littered the rest of the room, like a kind of perilous, dirty hail storm. When the roof had fully collapsed and the room stilled, Ryan pushed his way through the rubble that had covered them to sit up.
Then Brendon was being lifted out of Ryan’s arms, before he even knew what was happening. A huge, winged man wearing a helmet - exactly like Brendon had described - was hoisting Brendon up into the air with him. Brendon’s face was frozen in shock and fear, and his arms still extended towards Ryan. When it finally sunk in that he was being taken, into the sky and away from Ryan, he screamed Ryan’s name.
Ryan was frozen as he looked up through where the roof used to be. There were dozens of winged figures, their huge, majestic wings beating as they hovered in place in the sky.
“Brendon!” Ryan shouted, reaching up as far as his arms would let him. But Brendon had long been carried too high for Ryan to reach. There was one more shout of Ryan’s name, before all of the winged things disappeared into the distance, taking Brendon with them.
Ryan’s arms were still extended, his fingers grappling at a now-empty sky. But this time, he had no choice but to accept that Brendon really was gone.
Rating: PG 13 (brief suggestive content and voilence)
Pairings: Ryden, Ryan/Keltie (yes, I started this fic back when Ryan was still with Keltie. God help me.)
Summary: (AU, Chaptered, 3rd person POV) Brendon was an angel. Exiled from the heavens, his wings were cut from his back and he fell to Earth, losing all his memories in the process. On his casual way home from work one day, Ryan Ross finds him on the street, homeless and helpless. Immediately enchanted by the boy, Ryan brings Brendon home with him and promises to take care of him. But Ryan gets much more than he bargained for. Danger and mystery lurk around every corner as Brendon struggles to unravel his memories and Ryan tries to protect him from a group of dangerous people who take a sudden interest in the strange boy. And as time and tribulation bring them closer together, Ryan finds everything he knows - including himself - changing.
Word count for this chapter: 3,335
Late in the day after the night Ryan spent with Brendon, Ryan was sitting in his office, his chin propped up in his hands and a dreamy, blank expression on his face. The image of Brendon’s face was dancing in front of his eyes, his bright, beaming smile that’s always so full of life, his dark chocolate eyes, and the way those eyes always twinkle……
It wasn’t until when Ryan looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that he’d been daydreaming for a good half hour that he gave his head a hard shake, trying to rid himself of the image of Brendon’s face in his head that just wouldn’t go away.
“What the fuck?” he asked himself when he took in the fact that that he had actually been day dreaming about Brendon. Not Keltie, Brendon. Ryan sighed as he turned back to his computer, set on getting some work done instead of wasting his time day dreaming about Brendon. His cell phone rang from his pocket and he fished it out. The screen flashed Keltie’s cell phone number.
“Hello?”
“Ryan, Ryan oh my God…” Keltie’s voice was full of panic.
“Keltie? Keltie, what’s wrong?!” he asked, worried by the frantic edge to her voice.
“I…I-uh-you have t-to come pick me up! I’m downtown…..in-in front of the grocery store…”
“What? What are you doing there? Why don’t you have the car?”
“I…I ran, before even thinking about the car….I just ran.” Ryan was silent for a second. He didn’t understand, but he knew something had happened.
“Keltie….calm down and tell me what happened. Where’s Brendon? Is he alright?”
“Don’t ask me about Brendon! I don’t fucking know!”
“You’re really worrying me here. What happened? Tell me…” Ryan knew full-well that Keltie wasn’t Brendon’s biggest fan, but she’d never had an outburst like that before. He could hear Keltie breathing deeply, catching her breath and calming herself down.
“That’s it, honey. Calm down and tell me what happened.” After a few seconds, she finally started speaking.
Her voice was shaky, she sounded both frightened and angry, “I-I was in our bedroom, getting ready to leave for work, when someone knocked - no, pounded on the front door. They kicked the door down, it was the scariest sound I’ve ever heard. There were……a bunch of voices and footsteps downstairs. They all sounded like strong, giant men. When I snuck into the hallway to look downstairs, I-I thought I saw one of them, but they were moving around too much for me to get a good look at them. They were going through the house, first the living room and then moved to the kitchen. They were looking for something…..and I think they kept saying Brendon’s name, I don’t know, I didn’t really hear….” She trailed off, her voice fading. Ryan didn’t say anything, afraid that if he interrupted her, she might become upset again and stop telling him what had happened. “I….I was so scared, so horribly, horribly scared…when they all went into the kitchen, I-I ran for the front door that they had kicked down. Luckily, they didn’t see me. I was so panicked, that I just ran and ran and ran without looking back….and now I’m here, downtown..” her voice trailed off again, and Ryan knew she was done. But it took him a few seconds to take it all in, he couldn’t believe that she had…..
“What about Brendon?!! You just left him?” his voice was incredulous, “If those men were saying his name, then they were after him!”
Keltie’s voice suddenly came in a scream through the phone, “Why do you fucking care about him so much?! Who cares about some worthless homeless kid? You should be glad that I - me, your girlfriend! - is safe and sound, not worrying about him!”
“Yeah, I am really glad that you’re safe. But you shouldn’t have just left Brendon like that.”
“Damn you, Ryan Ross!” she screeched, “You have to fucking choose! If you care about that brat so much, then you don’t have time for a girlfriend! I’m sick of having to see that street-trash Brendon hanging on you all the time. Choose, Ryan! Choose between me and that worthless kid! Now, if you’re done, come over and pick me up.”
Ryan was silent. The line was completely devoid of sound as Ryan chewed on his bottom lip. “Ryan, come on, I need you to come pick me up.” Seconds ticked by, still, Ryan said nothing.
Finally, he whispered, “No.”
“What? I didn’t hear you.” Ryan took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“No. I said no. I’m not coming, Keltie, sorry.”
Silence. Then, “What?!”
Ryan took a deep breath. He knew that she was probably just acting like this now because of the trauma she’d gone through, but he had also known that it was only a matter of time before they reached a confrontation like this, and he couldn’t escape it anymore.
“I’m not coming. If you’re going to make me choose, then…..I’m sorry.” He was already pulling on his coat and leaving his office.
“W-..what?” Keltie’s voice sounded utterly bewildered, “You can’t be serious!”
“I am,” Ryan had managed to make his voice perfectly steady, “I’m sorry.” He hung up, turned the phone off, and dropped it in his pocket.
“Brendon? Brendon!” Ryan had practically had to crawl through what was left of the front doorway after he had run home. The floor all around where the front door used to be was covered with the splintered remains of the door. “Brendon!!” Terrified by the lack of a response, Ryan rushed up the stairs and into Brendon’s room. He swallowed hard, forcing back tears of desperation. The room was, for lack of a better word, completely trashed. The windows were shattered, the bed a splintered heap on the floor, and the walls marred with deep gashes.
“Brendon!” Now he was desperately screaming the boy’s name, and continued to do so as he searched the house frantically. He found all the rest of the rooms untouched, except for the living room, where the door had been kicked down. That soon changed though, as Ryan tore through the entire house, desperately searching for Brendon. He left a trail of a mess as he threw things everywhere in his search. He’d gone through every inch of the house, but still he refused to accept that Brendon was gone. He wouldn’t,…couldn’t.
He finally went back to Brendon’s bedroom, and just stood in the middle of the ruined room, silent and practically in a state of shock. And that, that was when he heard it. Soft, tiny…sniffling. Ryan turned, it was coming from the closet. Ryan had gone through the closet already, but he walked over and slid the closet door open again. The sniffling sound was coming from a large box in the corner of the closet. He opened the box again, even though he already knew what was in it: Clothes and then a blanket on the bottom. He pulled the clothes out, and as he did so, the sniffling grew louder. He reached the blanket at the bottom of the box again. This time, he gripped the fabric and pulled it out of the box.
And there was Brendon. Curled up and sniffling, his tear-streaked face was turned upwards, wide, frightened eyes accessing Ryan. Ryan’s heart melted at the sight of the boy.
“Brendon! Oh, Brendon, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Ryan’s heart clenched as Brendon just sniffled again. Ryan didn’t know, he didn’t know what had happened to Brendon, if the men that had broken in had done anything to hurt him. “Bren…..did they hurt you?” his tone was soft and gentle, he was so worried. Brendon didn’t move, still didn’t speak. Ryan frowned, ten times more worried now than he had been before. “What did those bad people do to you?” he asked softly and reached a hand into the box to lightly touch Brendon’s soft cheek. Ryan smiled a bit as he watched Brendon slowly turn his head into Ryan’s touch. He tilted his head up a tiny bit more, the light returning to his eyes.
“……Ryan?” he whimpered in a small voice. Ryan smiled and nodded.
“C’mon, let’s get you out of there.” Ryan reached down into the box, and Brendon extended his arms slightly towards Ryan. Ryan helped lift Brendon out from the box as the boy maneuvered himself out. As each of Brendon’s limbs emerged, they wrapped themselves around Ryan, and soon Ryan was kneeling on the floor outside the closet, cradling Brendon in his lap as Brendon clung to him.
“It’s alright, everything’s okay now,” Ryan said softly in a soothing voice and stroked Brendon’s dark hair. Brendon’s eyes were shut and his face pressed into Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan held the boy in his arms silently. If anything, Ryan thought this was far worse than any of the times Brendon had been scared by his nightmares, because of the boy’s silence and stillness right now.
After several minutes had passed, Ryan finally spoke to Brendon softly. “Bren? Do you want to tell me what happened?” At first, Brendon just clutched more tightly to Ryan, and said nothing. But after a few seconds, he spoke up.
“Y-yeah…” he gulped, not moving his head from Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan rubbed his back, and kept holding him. Brendon sniffed before he started talking. “The-…the big men, they came in here. They were looking for me, a-and they grabbed me right away. They were real scary-looking. Th-they were all muscular and wearing these weird helmets….and had wings.” Ryan froze.
“Wait, wait, wait….wings?” Brendon nodded solemnly and Ryan couldn’t find it in himself to question him.
“Y-yeah.” Ryan nodded.
“Keep telling me about the bad men.” Brendon lowered his eyes and swallowed.
“That’s all. They just…said some mean stuff to me, and hit me around a little.” Ryan’s fists clenched. “But….they all left all of a sudden, I don’t know why. One of them hit me….and then they all left.”
It was then that Ryan noticed a bruise on the side of Brendon’s chin. Rage boiled up in him. Brendon, however, hid his face against Ryan’s shoulder again as the scene with the bad, scary men played over in his mind no matter how much he wanted to forget….
Brendon sat bolt upright in his bed at the crashing sound of the front door of the house being pounded down. He tugged the blankets tight around his shoulders, frightened. He strained his ears, trying to hear what was going on downstairs. The minutes scraped on, and all he could hear was the sound of heavy feet moving around, and things being shifted, moved, and broken. Brendon thought suddenly, alarmed, of Keltie. If she was downstairs…..
Brendon slid out of bed and his cocoon of blankets and moved as silently as possible towards the door of his room. But before he could reach it, the door was thrown open, the hinges bending and flying off. Brendon’s eyes widened in fear and he stumbled backwards. Three large men pushed their way into the room, leering at Brendon, who was so tiny compared to them. The three of them were wearing the same clothes. They looked official, like their clothes were a uniform. They had the same kind of black pants Brendon had been wearing when Ryan had first found him. But instead of solid shirts, there were straps that looped over their shoulders and a few times around their muscular, bare chests. They were huge, tall and imposing, and Brendon was terrified. The giant wings sprouting from their backs did nothing to ease Brendon’s fear. The wings were, from top to bottom, as tall as the men themselves. They made the men look twice as large and frightening.
“Well well, look what we have here,” one of them said with an amused chuckle in his deep voice. Brendon’s wide eyes turned to the one that had spoken, but there were helmets covering all three of their faces, and all Brendon could see were piercing dark eyes, and a mouth stretched into a gloating smirk showing white teeth.
“He looks like a little mouse caught in a trap,” another one of them commented. The first one nodded in agreement and added, “How pathetic.” He stepped towards Brendon. Brendon gasped and moved to crawl away, but the man’s hand shot out and caught Brendon’s arm, holding him firmly in place. “So you’re staying with the human brat, huh? Ryan? He took you in?” Brendon just stared at him, his hazel eyes wide and terrified. “Answer me!” the man shouted, and gave Brendon a rough shake.
“Y-yes,” Brendon whimpered, his eyes dampening with tears.
“Let me see your back,” the man ordered all of a sudden, before turning Brendon around and hiking the boy’s shirt up over his back. He peered closely at the two long, ragged scars on Brendon’s back, appraising them. He made a ‘mhm’ sound before letting go of Brendon. Brendon immediately spun back around to face him, and tugged his shirt back down as he scurried backwards on the floor, pressing himself back against the side of the bed.
“You really don’t have any idea why you’re here, do you?” The second man asked, stepping towards Brendon. Brendon didn’t know what he meant, so he stayed silent. “He really has lost all his memories,” the same one said, looking down at his comrade who had grabbed Brendon a minute ago, and was still kneeling on the floor in front of the boy.
“It seems so,” the man kneeling on the floor agreed. But then his face turned into a grimace and he spat out, “And it makes me sick, seeing one of our own huddled here as some human’s pathetic little pet.”
Quick as lightning, he rose to his feet and fisted a hand roughly in the front of Brendon’s shirt. He lifted the small boy clean off the ground. Brendon let out a fearful noise, and squeezed his eyes shut. He fell limp in the man’s hold instead of making any attempt to fight back. “Why do you think that human took you in? Do you actually think he cares about you?” the man hissed, glaring at Brendon through the slit in his helmet.
Brendon opened his eyes at those words, and while they still glistened with tears, he looked at the man apprehensively and questioningly, instead of fearfully.
“You’re the most miserable thing I’ve ever seen! Of course Ryan would take pity on you, any human would. Pity is the only thing that made him take you in. You were lying out on the street like a heap of trash, and he knew someone would come and finish you if he didn’t help you. He couldn’t have that weighing on his conscience, now could he?”
Brendon’s face was slowly crumpling with each of the man’s painful words. “You thought he cared about you?! You actually took the liberty of letting yourself think he might love you? What a joke! He doesn’t love you. You’re just a little rat from the gutter that he saved from drowning so it wouldn’t clog the drain.”
With that, the man sent Brendon skidding to the floor with a punch to the lower left side of his face, hitting his jaw straight-on. Brendon laid in a motionless heap on the floor. His teary eyes finally spilled over, tears running down his face in streams. They weren’t from the hit to his face though, they were from what the man had said. That was ten times more painful, and it cut right through to his heart.
The third man, who had been silent up until now, finally spoke, “We’re not supposed to hurt him unless we have back-up.” The one who’d hit Brendon just scoffed. “Look at him. He’d never fight back.” He turned his back on Brendon and started striding towards the door. “Let’s go. We’ve seen what we need to.”
The second one followed him out immediately. The third, who hadn’t spoken until a moment ago, looked over at Brendon on the ground for a moment, regarding him sympathetically before leaving as well. Brendon didn’t move for a while. When he did, it was to dive into the box in the closet. He curled up under the blanket in the bottom of the box, and didn’t move until Ryan came home.
Ryan held Brendon for a long time. The boy was silent, no retelling anything more than what he had said earlier. He didn’t want to discuss the details aloud. Ryan wasn’t sure how much time had passed, just that they’d been sitting in the middle of the room together for a while now. Brendon was slowly calming down. He relaxed little by little as Ryan kept his arms curled around him and stroked his fingers through his hair. Brendon finally pulled back from Ryan a little, still shaking the slightest bit as he looked up into Ryan’s face.
“Ryan? I have to ask you something….” Brendon had to know. He had to know if what that awful man had told him was true. Did Ryan care about him? Was he only taking care of Brendon out of pity? Even if it hurt, Brendon had to know whether or not that was true. Brendon’s voice was tiny, and fearful all the way through as he said softly, “Do you….do you love me?”
Ryan’s eyes widened at the question. It came out of nowhere, that had been the last thing Ryan would have ever expected Brendon to ask him. ….What could he say to that? Ryan didn’t move for a second, didn’t speak. Brendon was looking up at him with these wide, hopeful eyes. It seemed like the boy was silently begging Ryan, in his own way, not to give him the answer that would break him.
But really, what could Ryan do? It had only been a matter of hours since he had cut Keltie out of his life. He knew there was indeed something strange that he felt for Brendon, but he wasn’t even sure yet whether or not it had been the right thing to do in abandoning Keltie. How could he possibly tell Brendon he loved him? No, Ryan was nowhere near prepared to face the idea.
“Brendon…I don’t..” But Ryan couldn’t tell Brendon what he ‘didn’t’, for at that moment, the roof caved in with a thunderous crash. Ryan choked on a gasp and instantly pulled Brendon closer and curled his own body down to lean over Brendon, shielding him.
Debris from the roof rained down on them and littered the rest of the room, like a kind of perilous, dirty hail storm. When the roof had fully collapsed and the room stilled, Ryan pushed his way through the rubble that had covered them to sit up.
Then Brendon was being lifted out of Ryan’s arms, before he even knew what was happening. A huge, winged man wearing a helmet - exactly like Brendon had described - was hoisting Brendon up into the air with him. Brendon’s face was frozen in shock and fear, and his arms still extended towards Ryan. When it finally sunk in that he was being taken, into the sky and away from Ryan, he screamed Ryan’s name.
Ryan was frozen as he looked up through where the roof used to be. There were dozens of winged figures, their huge, majestic wings beating as they hovered in place in the sky.
“Brendon!” Ryan shouted, reaching up as far as his arms would let him. But Brendon had long been carried too high for Ryan to reach. There was one more shout of Ryan’s name, before all of the winged things disappeared into the distance, taking Brendon with them.
Ryan’s arms were still extended, his fingers grappling at a now-empty sky. But this time, he had no choice but to accept that Brendon really was gone.